In the play Porgy and Bess — hopefully I will be sending some of you to Google — there is the song, ‘Summertime.” And the song begins, “Summertime and the living is easy.” I don’t know how “easy” the living actually was for Black folk back then.

But it is a beautiful song that connotes a cycle of the year where people take it easy as the crops grow and the weather is hot. And you just have to take it easy, especially down South in the heat and the humidity. You can’t help, but take it easy, relatively speaking, if you were going to survive until fall.

And I imagine summer to just be that as people enjoy family reunions, visit relatives, go on vacations, head up North every weekend to cottages and condos where things are a little bit cooler if for no other reason than there isn’t that much asphalt to warm things up. People go camping, ride bikes around Madison’s lakes and go to the zillion festivals that seem to pop up every weekend in Madison. There is too much to enjoy, almost too much. -- READ MORE